Earn < $100,000? All of your fed taxes go to private contractors

[charlie]

Was reading an article on one of the shadowy pork magnets that infests Washington, when I ran across this eye-opening data point:

It is a simple fact of life these days that, owing to a deliberate decision to downsize government, Washington can operate only by paying private companies to perform a wide range of functions. To get some idea of the scale: contractors absorb the taxes paid by everyone in America with incomes under $100,000. In other words, more than 90 percent of all taxpayers might as well remit everything they owe directly to SAIC or some other contractor rather than to the IRS.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/spyagency200703?printable=true¤tPage=all

Conservative drown-the-government types get their stupid mugs on TV every year to let us know which day Tax Amnesty Day falls on, so... I wonder if they'll adjust their tunes and let everyone know just who we're working to keep in clover the first months of the year?

This is such a perfectly realized boondoggle, I'm going to be dizzy with admiration while doing my taxes.

[onethatcares]

1. holy shit, no wonder nothing we do ever works

no matter who is elected, no matter what is proposed/passed/or thrown out as law, we as a country are run by one or two large corporations. Carlysle and SAIC it seems.

[charlie]

2. Amazing, innit?

The IRS is the enforcer for the tribute we owe corporate leeches. I'll bet they'd never thought they'd live to see the day. I know I didn't.

[razors edge]

3. The IRS has always been an enforcer for

a private interest, the Federal Reserve.

[GreenTea]

4. Bushco's war for profits will just keep rolling along.

[rucky]

5. If Congress won't do it...

I suppose we the taxpayers could de-fund this war.

:shrug: